By Leyna Krow, Assistant Editor, JTNews
As she nears the end of the page, Rivy Poupko Kletenik picks up her pace. She powers through the last few lines of Hebrew in front of her, choking back tears. Many of the women sitting around the table have the same text in front of them, but most eyes are on Kletenik.
When the final words pass through her lips, the women sitting closest to her reach to Kletenik to hug her and pat her shoulders. She has just finished a reading of the Talmud Brachot, marking the completion of her all-women Talmud class’s first tractate — a project that has taken them 12 years.
“I’m tearing up a little here. As you know, this is very emotional on a number of levels,” Kletenik said to the class after she finished the reading during a celebration at the Seattle Hebrew Academy on Sept. 10.
Twelve years may seem like a long time, but Kletenik said that’s about right for a group that only meets for an hour once a week.
“We never skip anything,” she said. “We read every piece and talk at great lengths.”
According to Kletenik, the first tractate is the longest in the Talmud in terms of the number of words. Talmud Brachot deals primarily with the rules concerning various blessings.
The time spent on the tractate wasn’t the only reason for Kletenik’s emotional response to its conclusion, however. The class’s progress through the Talmud also serves as a milestone in what has been, for Kletenik and others, a long fight to improve religious education for Jewish women and girls.
“It was taken for granted for many hundreds of years that women did not study Talmud,” Kletenik said.
It’s only been in the last few decades that Talmud classes for women have begun to emerge, and in many places they are still met with criticism.
Kletenik’s class meets every Thursday morning in the library at the Seattle Hebrew Academy, where she is head of school.
Kletenik said that about 15 women typically attend the classes. The Sept. 10 gathering was larger, with around 30 attendees, because many of the women had brought daughters or friends along to celebrate the tractate’s completion. Of the 15 regulars, Kletenik noted that three have been a part of the class on and off since the beginning.
The class was originally held in the library at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, but then after a couple of years moved to SHA.
“Behind the scenes, there were some people who were not comfortable with me teaching Talmud to women at this school,” Kletenik recalled. “It was asked that I use handouts, not books. It was asked that I not call it a ‘Talmud’ class. I said ‘no.’”
Kletenik also stood firm in her position that all students at SHA should have the chance to learn Talmud.
“Today, Talmud is taught to girls in this building and at NYHS,” she said, referring to the Northwest Yeshiva High School.
Supporting the co-ed Talmud curricula at SHA was not the only time Kletenik has gone to bat for women’s Talmud study in schools. In fact, it’s something she’s been fighting for since she was a student at Touro College, where she successfully petitioned the administration to open up a Talmud class for women.
Apparently, however, the school’s administrative officials were not the only ones who needed to be convinced it was all right.
“I was the only one in the class,” she recalled.
Other women present for the tractate’s completion also shared stories of the challenges they had faced when they had expressed interest in studying Talmud.
Ruz Gulko, who has been coming to the class on and off for more than a decade, recalled of being a 5th grader at a day school in Canada and asking her teacher when the class would start its Talmud studies.
“He told me, ‘The boys start learning Talmud next year, and you girls will be learning how to keep a kosher home,’” she said.
Gulko persisted, however, insisting that she be allowed to study with the boys.
“They finally allowed me to sit in on the class, provided I did not speak,” she said.
Perhaps it is because many of the women in the class spent years watching fathers, brothers and husbands go to Talmud study before they were finally given the opportunity, that Kletenik’s class is such a breath of fresh air. Rabbi Arlene Schuster noted that the women-only class has something of an exclusive feel to it.
“When I told him what we were doing today, my son said, ‘I’m so excited for you, I wish I could be there.’ And I said, ‘Well, you can’t, because you’re not a woman.’” Schuster quipped.
Of course, provided they are not men, anyone is welcome to join. According to Kletenik, the women who attend the group represent a wide range of Jewish backgrounds and levels of observance.
“Women come from the full spectrum of the community. These are people with very strong beliefs and here they’re able to sit together and hear each other’s opinions and the opinions that come out during discussion,” she said.
Keeping the class accessible for all is important to Kletenik. After all the obstacles that women have faced to gain education opportunities equal to their male counterparts, she doesn’t want anyone to struggle with finding a place in her class.
“No one pays for this class, no one registers for it,” she said. “Anyone is welcome at anytime. And there’s free parking.”